Grumpy Old Men
"You chew like a cow!"
"Like a – what the hell are you talking about?! I chew fine!"
The angry voices of Kaiba Seto and Jounouchi Katsuya echoed loudly in the master bedroom. Clearly, they were having a fight. Again.
"You chew fine?" an irritated Seto asked incredulously. "Your mouth opens so wide, I can talk to your breakfast! You know what it says? It's windy in here!"
"Oh, it does not say that! Food doesn't talk, stupid!"
"You know what does talk, though? You! At great length! While eating!"
Jou had to duck a hairbrush that came flying at him from across the room.
"Oh yeah? You think I'm the only one with bad eating habits? You chew your food thirty two times - every time. Every time! I've counted!"
"That's actually a good eating habit, you idiot," Kaiba stated as he looked for another hairbrush on the vanity table in front of him. The bed separated him from Jou and his hairbrush, and he was not about to traipse all the way over there to fetch it.
"I don't care! It's irritating! It's no wonder you don't eat anything, it takes too fricking long! Anyways, that's not the only thing! You brush your hair the same number of times every time, and you brush your teeth the same number of times every time – it's insane! You obviously have some sort of OCD, and you know what? OCD pisses me off!" Jou picked up the brush that laid a few steps behind him and flung it at Seto's head. Luckily, he saw it coming in the mirror, and dodged.
"I do not have OCD!" Seto said heatedly, turning to face Jou.
"Well, you've got something! You fold your underwear, for Buddha's sake! Your underwear! Who folds their underwear? Not normal people! You're so anal retentive, you crap diamonds!" Jou nearly put out his own eye with all his wild gesticulations.
Seto opened his mouth to deny Jou's words, but then remembered that he really was anal retentive. Damn.
"How would you know I crap diamonds? I know how to close the door when I'm in the bathroom!" he shouted instead.
"What?" Jou asked distractedly. He was obviously still thinking about Seto's underwear.
"The bathroom door! I close it when I'm in there! When I'm using the bathroom, I close the door – it's simple household etiquette to close the damned door when you're using the damned bathroom!" Seto hollered.
"And I keep telling you that it's stuffy! I feel claustrophobic in there when the door's closed!" Jou sounded almost pathetic. But Seto was not to be had, oh no.
"Then open a window!" he yelled angrily.
"There are no windows, moneybags! You've got all this money, and you can't put a – window - in the stupid bathroom!" This time, Jou did poke himself in the eye.
"Ow."
"You want a window? You want a stupid window?!" Seto asked, infuriated beyond belief. He looked around him frantically, before finally picking up a barbell that had been lounging under the vanity for the past five years. It was Jou's barbell – he never used it. That pissed him off too.
"I'll give you a fucking window!"
With that, Seto barged past Jou and into the adjoining master bathroom. He looked for a bare space of wall, and found one between the Jacuzzi/tub and the marble sink. He looked over his shoulder to make sure that Jou was watching, and found him staring from the doorway.
"Here's your goddamned window!"
He lifted the weight in his hands and bashed it against the wall – and nothing happened. Before Jou could have the chance to snicker, Seto attacked the wall again, repeatedly whacking the concrete with the metal, until a good deal of it was chipped away and cracked. He eventually stopped, arms aching, chest heaving, pulse racing. He dropped the barbell, missing his feet by centimetres.
"Idiot. That wall would have opened up into the study," Jou said calmly. Seto turned, blinking chunks of wall from his eyes that fell from his hair. Jou was leaning against the doorjamb, legs casually crossed.
Seto spat out chips of paint as he talked. "No it doesn't. That's the library wall."
"I'm telling you, it's the study wall!" Jou said, voice rising. He pushed himself from the doorframe. Seeing Seto hacking at the bathroom wall with his fitness equipment had definitely made his day. He was just an old man, after all, and easily amused. He was willing to put the evening's excitement behind him and move on. He was even willing to forget that Seto called him a cow. But here Seto was, pissing him off again. Did he always have to be such a damned know-it-all?
"Oh, what would your big ass know?" Seto asked irritatedly, closing his eyes and shaking his head. A cloud of dust spread around him. He opened his eyes quickly, though, sensing danger in the eerie silence. He immediately focused on Jou's steely glare through the haze, sharp and unforgiving.
"My big ass?" Jou ground out through gritted teeth. "Are you calling me fat, you rabid control freak?" his voice was dangerously even, as was his gaze. But Seto was not to be intimidated, oh no.
"Yes! You heard me! Your big ass! You don't only chew like a cow, you're as big as one!" Seto was about to open his mouth to moo, but Jou beat him to it, sputtering and stammering fiercely. Seto smiled. When Jou was really mad, he couldn't form words; he could only stutter and huff and puff. And from the looks of it, the huffing and puffing was imminent. Score one for the great Kaiba Seto.
Jou watched Seto smile almost smugly; he was obviously happy at getting the last word. Well, there was no way he'd let that happen. There was no way in hell he'd forget that cow comment now, either. He racked his brain, trying to come up with something better, something that would wipe that smile off of his face.
"Yeah? Yeah, well you…your…you've got big ears!"
He froze, resisting the urge to screw his eyes shut and smack himself in the head. Big ears? What the hell kind of comeback was that? Instead he turned to face Seto, chin jutting out triumphantly. Seto looked at him as though he had lost his mind.
"I've got big ears?" he said in amazement. His hand reached up, as if to check for himself, but it quickly shot down to his side again.
"I do not have big ears!" Colour bloomed in Seto's cheeks.
Jou was surprised that Seto was taking this information so badly. It was quite obvious that Seto's ears were larger than average – he couldn't have missed that all these years.
"Oh yes you do – they're like bat ears or something. And they just keep getting bigger! When we were kids, I thought they were kinda big, but they just kept on growing! Now, if it's too windy out, I'm afraid you'll just float away!"
Seto gasped, and clapped his hands to his ears. He had always been sensitive about his ears, but he was sure he had hidden it well. Up to now, at least. And now, the puppy had figured out his secret insecurity – damn him! He sniffed and tried to mentally compose himself.
"I think this conversation is over," he said, straightening his shirt and trying to regain the dignity he was sure he'd lost sometime in the last few minutes.
"What do you mean, it's over? Do you always have to be in control of everything?! Oh, never mind! That would be your retentive ass!" With that, Jou spun around and marched back into the bedroom.
"Oh, Katsuya, would you just give it a rest! This is ridiculous. We need to stop this – it's getting us nowhere." Seto followed Jou into the bedroom, suddenly tired of all the bickering.
"What are you doing?" he asked when he saw Jou tugging the blanket off the bed.
"I'm taking my big ass to a guest bedroom!" Jou grunted, almost stumbling over as the blanket gave.
"Then why are you taking my blanket?" Seto tried to sound aloof and indifferent, but he was really a little concerned. Jou never spent the night elsewhere. This was new and different, and he was sure he wasn't going to like it.
"Because this is my favourite blanket," Jou said. He was tired of all the fighting, and it was happening more and more frequently these days. Sometimes it was fun, just like the old days when they were young and volatile and thought they hated each other. Sometimes it wasn't, like now. A trove of feelings was always dredged up - like rage and frustration, and a host of others he couldn't name - even if they argued about things they'd always argued about, like now. He suddenly wanted to get away from it all, to calm down somewhere.
"No, that's not your favourite blanket. Your favourite blanket is the one with the blue bird-things on it. That one's got yellow leaves," Seto said matter-of-factly, pointing vaguely in the blanket's direction. Maybe his calm voice would soothe the clearly irate Jou – he knew that kind of thing worked for wild animals. Why not a wild Jou?
"Look, if I say it's my favourite blanket, it's my freaking favourite, okay?! Do you have to argue about everything?" snapped Jou.
"Fine! Take the fucking thing if you want it so much," Seto responded testily.
"Fine! My big ass and I are leaving now – watch out, I might hit you on the way out!"
Jou bundled up the comforter in his arms and made his way to the door, bits of blanket trailing on the floor behind him.
"You'd better go to the very last room and be super quiet, or my freakish bat ears might –"
Seto's sentence was cut off by Jou trying to slam the door. The first time, the blanket was caught in the frame and the door just bounced open, revealing a glaring Jou. The second time, the door slammed, but Seto could see a corner of the blanket peeking through the crack. It was ferociously ripped free moments later, and he could hear Jou's stomping footsteps as he tramped to the farthest guest bedroom.
He turned to the empty room and sighed, running his hands through his hair. His hands came away full of dust and concrete crumbs. He went to wash his hair.
Half an hour later, he was even angrier than he'd been when he'd trudged into the shower. He had stood there washing his hair for fifteen minutes before realising that the stubborn white streaks that refused to come out were his own grey hairs.
'Damn grey hairs!' he though as he flopped onto the bed. 'I'm only fifty! Ish. Fifty-ish.' He sighed again. He'd never been one for self-denial. Where had all this come from?
"Denial probably comes with the arthritis," he mused out loud dryly. Not that he had arthritis. But he already had the grey hair. Arthritis couldn't be far behind.
It was old age that caused his and Jou's earlier row. He had been brushing his hair, and on the fifteenth stroke, he discovered a new colony of snowy strands. That, combined with the discovery of a new wrinkle the day before sent him into an unsubstantiated rage, and he had to take out the frustration on something.
Poor Jou. He'd had no right to haul off on him like that, even if he really did chew like a cow. And he had no right to tell him he looked like a cow either. That really wasn't true. He'd known that Jou was sensitive about his weight – not that he had to be – and used it against him. That's what he did for a living – he'd done it for years. It was his job to know his opponent's weakness and use it against him. But Jou hadn't been his opponent for a long time, and he really should stop living in the past. He knew old habits died hard, but this one was already dead.
'Oh great and shining Buddha, what the hell came over me?!' he suddenly thought, embarrassment and mortification washing over him simultaneously. He'd flung his hairbrush across the room! He'd attacked his bathroom wall with a barbell! And, heavens forbid, he would have mooed out loud if Jou hadn't interrupted him. Out loud! Is this what the great Kaiba Seto was reduced to? Mooing while violently brandishing a barbell at indeterminate slabs of concrete? He wanted to curl into a ball of shame and roll away forever. Was he going crazy?
No. He was getting old. And it was too much for him to handle. When he was younger, he'd wanted to win everything and be the best at everything; to fulfil every potential he humanly could. He thought he'd be proud of himself in his old age, self-satisfied and complacent in his own superiority. And he was. To an extent. He was barely fifty…okay, he was fifty-ish…and he still wanted to do so much more. He didn't want to stop winning and being the best, but he knew he couldn't keep up with the rest of the world forever. He felt as though doors were being closed all around him; and that one day soon, he'd be locked in a little room, alone with a photo album of all the things he did when his body was still as young as his mind was. Just memories.
Alone. No, he wouldn't be alone. He had Jou. Well, he did, until the cow incident. He wondered when Jou would come back. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was already 7:45PM. They'd missed dinner. Jou must have been very upset. Oh well. Why not turn in for the night anyway? He got a new blanket from the cupboard. Jou would be back soon, and Seto knew that old people needed their rest. He cringed as he thought the words, but slid under the sheets anyway.
Way, way down the hall, Jou was already in bed, tucked up under his favourite blanket with yellow leaves on it, eating a large sandwich. He'd been so busy damning Seto that he'd missed dinner, and there was no way he'd starve on account of that smug bastard. He had viciously crept down the stairs to the kitchen, where he viciously slapped together a sandwich. Now, he was viciously eating it in bed. He chomped on it, imagining he was biting Seto's hand, or maybe his giant ears.
He sighed when he was done eating. Now that he wasn't really mad anymore, and – more importantly - now that his sandwich was done, he'd have to do some thinking. He always hated this part. Emotions he knew what to do with, he acted on those all the time. When it came to analysis of those emotions, however, particularly Seto's, Jou found it difficult to come to any intelligent conclusion.
He did know that Seto was picking on him for nothing, though. Just because he found a couple of grey hairs this morning did not mean that it was okay to take it out on poor, innocent, skinny men who happened to be nearby. Because he wasn't fat. No - he looked nothing like a cow. Cows were brown, or black and white, and Jou was –
'Oh, stop it!' he berated himself. 'You are not fat, he only said that to hurt you!'
Which is what Jou couldn't understand. He knew that Seto was afraid of growing old, of not being top dog anymore. Jou had his own insecurities, like his weight, for instance. Ever since he'd turned forty, he was obsessed with the idea that he was gaining weight with each meal – every lunchtime was another love handle, and every snack was another jowl. Not that he stopped eating. And not that he had love handles or jowls either, as Seto constantly had to point out, but the images still plagued him.
The thing is, instead of getting all testy, Seto was actually kind of supportive about it. He was always there with a kind word for Jou whenever he got extremely depressed ("You're not fat, goddamn you!"), or a gentle touch when he was particularly concerned (Jou was once slapped upside the head when he asked if he should be counting his calories), and Seto had even gotten him that weight set five years ago. Which Jou swore he would get around to using. Soon. Sometime.
The point was that he let Seto in. He let Seto see that he was vulnerable, that he was afraid of aging too. And Seto had been there for him. In his own way, that is. But he had been there nonetheless. They had been together for years - too many years to count - and they trusted each other, didn't they? Did he think that Jou wouldn't do the same for him? Did he think that Jou would make fun of his thirty-nine grey hairs and five wrinkles? Of course he wouldn't. All he wanted, all he ever wanted, was just to be there for Seto, whatever the need. And that was no reason to call him a cow. None at all.
He sighed again. Well, that was what he had to do. Just be there for him. Seto would confide in Jou when he was ready, wouldn't he? He looked at the clock on the wall. Almost 9PM. He knew he wouldn't be getting to sleep in the guest bedroom. Not because anything was wrong with the bed or anything, but because he'd slept with Seto for so long that his body felt empty when it didn't have another body to curl around and mould to. That knowledge both warmed and disgusted Jou at the same time. Well, there was nothing for it. Back to the master bedroom. He'd try to tread lightly. The bat might be sleeping, and he didn't want his giant cow-legs to wake him up. Even though he'd deserve it.
'Maybe we should start taking some fibre or something,' Jou thought as he shuffled up the hall, the blanket pulled over his head. 'We sure are grumpy old men.'
'Maybe things went too far today,' Seto thought. He turned again, tossing the covers aside. He couldn't sleep dammit. Jou knew he couldn't sleep at night without him nearby, and he had up and gone to the farthest room at the end of the hall. The bastard.
'This is all Katsuya's fault,' he thought angrily, fluffing the pillows. 'No,' he amended tiredly. 'It's your fault. Maybe he's not coming back, and you're never going to sleep again. I'll spend the rest of my nights counting the stars, and re-folding my underwear.'
Maybe it was time he let go. Well, not of his apparent OCD; some things just couldn't be helped. But maybe he'd try to fix his phobia of old age. After all, Jou was getting old too. They might as well do it together. But they couldn't do it together if Jou was all the way down the hall. Maybe he should get up and bring him back. Just as he was contemplating the pros and cons of this idea, the door opened and closed quietly. He turned, and saw Jou, cocooned in his blanket, standing at the other side of the bed. He looked gorgeous in the moonlight. Seto smiled gratefully.
"I knew you'd come back," he said.
"I am a merely creature of habit, and wish to go to sleep," Jou said, trying to sound haughty. His eyes avoided the bed, but when it finally landed on the sheets he cried out, "Hey! That's my favourite blanket!"
"I thought you said that one was your favourite blanket?" Seto asked, pointing at the one Jou had wrapped over his head.
"They both are," Jou huffed.
"Fine," Seto said benignly. "Just come here."
Jou looked at Seto for a while, before concluding that that was the best apology he was likely to get. Verbal apology, that is. Old people could still do it. He accepted Seto's invitation, and clambered into bed. They spent some time arranging the extra blanket over them, and then they settled down the way they always did, Jou's back to Seto's chest, Seto's arm slung over Jou's waist. They let drowsiness take them.
Jou was almost asleep when he felt, rather than heard, Seto chuckle. His breath stirred the hair at Jou's neck.
"What?" he asked sleepily.
"So I've got big ears, huh?" he replied, laughter in his voice.
"So I chew like a cow, huh?" Jou did not sound as amused as he was.
Choosing wisely to avoid rehashing the details of their fight when they had just made up, Seto relented.
"Goodnight, puppy," he said softly, lightly squeezing Jou with the arm draped across his waist.
"'Night," smiled Jou. He still loved that old nickname, dumb as it sounded. He sighed contentedly. They could always fight it out tomorrow.
Am I the only one who's noticed how GIGANTIC Seto's ears are? I can't be. They're huge. You'd think with so much money, he'd be able to fix something like that. Not that I'd want him to. His bat ears are just as sexy as the rest of him…mreoww That was actually how the fic got started – I was watching the episode with Seto and Leichter (whose accent I adore and use quite often), and they did a profile of Seto's head…and his ears were just out of this world with bigness. I loved it. shrug Oh well. sigh
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